Adolf Beck: A pioneer in electroencephalography in between Richard Caton and Hans Berger

Adolf Beck, born in 1863 in Kraków (Poland), joined the Department of Physiology of the Jagiellonian University in 1889, to work directly under the prominent professor in physiology Napoleon Cybulski. Following his suggestion, Beck started studies on the electrical brain activity of animals. He recorded negative electrical potentials in several brain areas evoked by peripheral sensory impulses. Using this technique, Beck localised various centres in the brain of several animal species. In doing this, he discovered continuous electrical oscillations in the electrical brain activity and noted that these oscillations ceased after sensory stimulation. This was the first description of desynchronization in electrical brain potentials. He published these findings in 1890 in the German Centralblatt für Physiologie. Immediately, an intense discussion arose under physiologists on the question who could claim being the founder of electroencephalography. Ultimately, Richard Caton from Liverpool showed that he had performed similar experiments in monkeys years earlier. Nevertheless, Beck added several new elements to the nature of electrical brain activity, such as evoked potentials and desynchronization. In looking back, Adolf Beck can be regarded, next to Richard Caton and together with Hans Berger (who later introduced the electrical brain recording method to humans), as one of the founders of electroencephalography.


Beck's recordings of electricAl BrAin Activity
Beck began to measure the excitability at two points of the spinal cord of the frog following the stimulation of the sciatic nerve. One electrode was placed at the lower spinal cord and the other at the entry of the spinal cord to the brain at the height of the cerebral hemispheres. It appeared that the electronegative variations following stimulation substantially changed at the level of the chord's entry point into the brain.
This was explained by the observation that the spontaneous current was already fluctuating, while the evoked activity added to these oscillations. Beck published his first findings in a Polish scientific journal in 1888 (Beck, 1888). A year later, Beck became graduate student at the Department of Physiology of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków where he began his extensive research on the electrical processes of the brain, the main topic of his doctorate work. The oscillations which Beck and Cybulski saw in the fluctuating baseline led these authors to the idea of continuously recording the spontaneous electrical brain activity. Beck finished his medical doctorate work with a cum laude graduation in 1890. The dissertation written in the Polish language appeared in 1891 (Beck, 1891). On the initiative of Mary Brazier, an expert on the history of neuroscience, this thesis was later translated into English .
One year earlier, Beck sent a summary of his extensive research in the form of a short manuscript entitled "Die Bestimmung der Localisation der Gehirn-und Rückenmarksfunctionen vermittelst der electrischen Erscheinungen" ["The Determination of the Localisation of the Brain and Spinal Cord Functions by Way of Electrical Appearances"] to the leading European physiology magazine Centralblatt für Physiologie (Beck, 1890). This paper became a classic in electrophysiology. In that brief article, Beck described his findings on the nature of electrical brain activity. He described the localisation of sensory modalities on the surface of cerebral cortex by electrical and sensory stimulation and by recording the electrical activities with clay electrodes and with a string galvanometer (Figure 2). In frogs as well as in paralysed dogs and rabbits, he explored the parts of the cortex which reacted upon stimulation with electronegativity. Beck did this for several sensory modalities. In doing this, Beck also found the spontaneous oscillations of brain potentials and showed that these fluctuations were not related to heart and breathing rhythms. Moreover, Beck mentioned the change in the potentials upon sensory stimulation. The evoked potentials were followed by a cessation of the fluctuations of the electrical waves as a consequence of afferent stimulation, either by electrical stimulation of the nervus ischiadicus or by peripheral stimulation with light flashes or handclaps. This brief paper attracted a lot of attention and can be considered as the first to describe "evoked potentials" as well as the desynchronisation in the electroencephalogram following stimulation (Coenen, Zayachkivska, & Bilski, 1998). It was clear that the then 27year old Beck claimed to be the discoverer of the electrical brain activity that is nowadays known as the electroencephalogram.

Figure 2.
left: the du Bois-reymond electrodes used by Beck for recording the electrical brain activity. these non-polarisable electrodes were made of cotton threads embedded in clay. electrodes were connected to a d' Arsonval galvanometer which was provided with a tiny mirror (m), reflecting a light beam on a read-out scale. recording cameras were not available.

clAims on the discovery of electricAl BrAin Activity
In the scientific domain of physiology, the paper of Beck evoked a polemic. A spate of claims for priority in discovering electrical brain activity followed. The first was from Ernst Fleischl von Marxow (1890), a prominent physiology professor at the University of Vienna (Figure 3).
He wrote that he had already 7 years earlier deposited a sealed letter at the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna containing claims on the discovery of electrical brain activity. Indeed in that letter indications of electrical brain activity were given but Fleischl's observations missed crucial points. Fleischl who suffered from chronic pains and was treated by his friend Sigmund Freud with cocaine, was heavily addicted and died shortly after his letter in 1891. A second response to Beck's paper came from Francis Gotch and Victor Horsley (Gotch & Horsley, 1891). Although they referred to papers slightly related to the subject, it was of interest that they mentioned the electrical response to sensory stimulation. Gotch, a direct colleague of Caton and the descriptor of the refractory phase that takes place between nerve impulses, performed experiments on the electrical responses of the mammalian spinal cord to cortical stimulation. He did this together with his brother in law, the famous Horsley, the designer of the stereotactic apparatus for brain research. Just as Fleischl, however, Gotch and Horsley overlooked essential elements, such as the spontaneous oscillations and the cessation of these fluctuations after stimulation.
The most interesting response, however, came from Vasili Y.
Danilevsky (1891; see Figure 3), a scientist working at the University of Charkow (Russia, now Ukraine). Danilevsky studied at the University of Kazan in Russia together with Vladimir Ulyanov, later known as Lenin, and he finished his study at the University of Charkow in 1877.
His doctoral thesis dating from that year was entitled Investigations in the Physiology of the Brain and was written in Russian. In his letter to the Centralblatt, Danilevsky mentioned his non-published doctoral thesis.
Indeed in this manuscript a description of the spontaneously fluctuating brain potentials of a dog's brain can be found and also indications for the changes in brain potentials after stimulation. Unfortunately, Danilevsky published a summary of his thesis in his response to Beck not earlier than 1891. Nevertheless, what results of the claims to the Centralblatt is that it is almost certain that Danilevsky was the first scientist after Caton who observed electrical potentials of the brain.

cAton's decisive clAim
The discussion concerning the claim on the discovery of the electrical brain activity was abruptly ended by a letter of Richard Caton on the animal brain, using non-polarisable electrodes and a string galvanometer. After defending his priority in having made the discovery of the electrical brain waves, he did no further work on the brain. For many years his family and colleagues were unaware of his discovery.
This was possible partly because of many other things that he did in his life, but also because he took deliberate steps to hide the fact that he had worked on the brain of animals. The most important of these other activities was a study of the treatment of rheumatic heart disease. Caton's interest in his university never waned, and he reached the high office of pro-chancellor. Later, he became a city councillor and devoted much time to the promotion of public health. In 1907 he was elected Lord Mayor of Liverpool and as such he became more well-known than as a brain scientist. Nonetheless Richard Caton is presently recognised as the discoverer of the electrical brain activity, which forms the basis of electroencephalography (Brazier, 1959(Brazier, , 1988

humAn BrAin recordings of Berger
Almost 40 years after Beck, in 1929, Hans Berger published his first paper about recordings of electrical activity from the surface of the human brain (Berger, 1929; Figure 3). Berger was interested in clinical applications of electrical brain activity and especially in the relation of brain activity with "psychic energy. " He had a more sensitive double-coil galvanometer than his predecessors, while at the same time powerful amplifiers came on the scene. Already in 1924 he was able to record the electrical intra-cerebral brain activity in patients with skull defects but it lasted until 1927 before he could make recordings directly from the skull. His children, especially son Klaus and daughter Ilse, were main, obedient, but also often unwilling subjects. Berger was the first to record the electrical activity from an intact human skull and so promoted a non-invasive technique. Berger came to the conclusion that the discovery of the EEG was not only a major breakthrough in neurophysiology but also that this technology was of outstanding importance for its diagnostic value (Berger, 1929(Berger, , 1969. Berger's wife Freiin Ursula von Bülow had a hard time since son Klaus fell on the battlefield in Russia half a year later. Berger was the first to non-invasively record electrical activity of the human brain and so promoted the transfer of the brain recording technique from animals to humans.
A main implication was that Berger got the honour to be generally regarded as the grandfather of electroencephalography. In the history of electroencephalography, interest must also be directed to its two earlier discoverers: Richard Caton with his first note of 1875, and Adolf Beck with his 1890 paper. In looking back, it seems best to attribute the discovery of electroencephalography to the trio: to Richard Caton for his brief description of brain waves, to Adolf Beck for his extensive brain work in animals, and to Hans Berger for making the recording technique applicable to humans.

Beck Appointed professor in lemBerg
It is noteworthy to mention that the scientific activity of Beck was not limited to electrophysiology. Beck's scientific interests were broad, and he extended his research to other fields, such as to general and visceral physiology. In 1894 Beck got his venia legendi ("habilitation") in physiology with a thesis entitled On Variations in Venous Pressure (Beck, 1895). In May 1895, at the age of 32 Beck accepted the offer to be appointed as professor in physiology at the University of Lemberg. Petersburg, and a friend of Napoleon Cybulski. After several months Beck was able to return to Lemberg. In 1935 he authored a memoir on the adverse days of the First World War which became a genuine documentary chronicle of the events that took place at the university (Beck, 1935). In the year 1919 Beck lost his friend Napoleon Cybulski. Beck paid tribute to his old teacher as a scientist, a colleague, a friend of the university, and a great human being (Beck, 1919). Beck retired in 1930 at the age of 67 with the title Professor honoris causa, one of his many distinctions. He was a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kraków, of the Academy of Medical Science in Warsaw, as well of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Beck produced 180 publications and was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in physiology, once in 1905, then in 1908, and finally in 1911, but he never received this high honour (Zayachkivska, Gzegotsky, & Coenen, 2012).

Beck's trAgedy in the second World WAr
During the Second World War life became even more troubled and dangerous for Beck than during the First World War. Lwów was then occupied by the Nazis, and Beck, who was of Jewish origin, remained in the town and suffered many humiliations. Instead of hiding, he decided to stay in his house in the shadow of the university to which he had devoted so many years of his working life. But it became too risky, since many Jews were already murdered in the Janowska and Bełżec concentration camps, and several Lwów professors were killed on the  Yet, Henryk Beck provided medical assistance to the wounded and, moreover, with his artistic talents he could manage to create a series of documentary drawings and watercolours about the war, his life, and his family under these conditions (Jaworska, 1982). Henryk Beck survived the occupation and in 1946 he got a chair in obstetrics in Wrocław.
Unfortunately, after some months he died of heart failure, undoubtedly following his sufferings of the war time. Beck's daughter Jadwiga Beck-Zakrzewska was the only member of the Beck family who survived.
In a moving obituary (Beck-Zakrzewska, 1973), she remembered her father Adolf Beck as a great scientist and humanist.